Quicker Than St. John the Divine

By Steven Heller

Published: December 5, 1999

Building The Book

''Cathedral''

By David Macaulay.

112 pp. Boston:

Walter Lorraine Books/

Houghton Mifflin Company. $29.95.

If you want to know how anything works, David Macaulay has the answers. An eminent children's book author and illustrator, Macaulay has carved out a niche as a visual essayist who has transformed a personal fascination with mechanics, engineering, architecture and plain old gadgetry into books that illuminate the mysteries of the wondrous and the commonplace. The most notable, including ''Castle,'' ''City,'' ''Mill,'' ''Pyramid,'' ''Ship,'' ''Underground,'' ''Unbuilding'' and ''The Way Things Work,'' examine things people have built from the inside out and the ground up.

Through his elegant line drawings and eloquent prose, Macaulay artfully opens doors to otherwise perplexing questions of construction and invention. In one book he effortlessly explains the building of the Egyptian pyramids; in another, the hidden workings of the urban infrastructure. In ''The Way Things Work,'' an illustrated catalog of everyday functional objects, which was also produced as an interactive CD-ROM, no contraption is too small or too complex for analysis.

And this is not just superficial analysis, either. Macaulay has the insight of a fabricator and the vision of an inventor. Even his humorous books -- Rome Antics,'' ''Great Moments in Architecture'' and ''Motel of the Mysteries'' -- are replete with genuine data and incredible lore designed to inspire children and adults.

Of Macaulay's 16 books, ''Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction,'' published over 25 years ago, is my favorite. It was the first time as an adult I read a so-called children's book that answered questions I had been asking since I was a kid. From the day my third-grade class visited the perpetually unfinished Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan, I wanted to know how such ambitious structures as this were built during the Middle Ages without the benefit of diesel engines and towering cranes. Moreover, what kind of intelligence masterminded such difficult undertakings? I had no patience for academic studies, so Macaulay's book was the perfect alternative.

''Cathedral'' begins in 13th-century France, in an imaginary but plausible place called Chutreaux, and proceeds as a guided tour of the arduous construction, lasting almost a century, of a sacred building intended to house the remains of St. Germain, a knight of the First Crusade. ''The people of Chutreaux wished to build the longest, widest, highest and most beautiful cathedral in all of France,'' Macaulay wrote. ''The new cathedral would be built to the glory of God and it mattered little that it might take more than 100 years to construct it.'' Macaulay introduces an architect, William of Planz, the Philip Johnson of his day, who developed the original design. Then he reports on the generations of quarrymen, stonecutters, roofers and other master craftsmen who built up each level, from cavernous foundation to vaulted ceiling, ever higher toward heaven.

The methods of construction are chronicled in clear, cross-hatched, pen-and-ink line drawings that are neither overly academic nor tediously schematic nor slavishly mannered. They are, however, historically accurate. Macaulay's exhaustive research is evidenced in each detailed picture. In fact, this book could be called ''Cathedrals for Dummies,'' except that Macaulay never talks down to his readers. It is an impeccable piece of scholarship and an artistic tour de force.

Yet surprisingly, as it turns out, Macaulay was never entirely pleased with the result. Imperceptible to the reader are the pesky printing errors, misused words and misplaced lines and figures that have plagued him since he created the book ''in a state of sublime ignorance.'' Most authors must live with their perceived mistakes. But owing to Macaulay's publishing success (he received a Caldecott Medal for ''Black and White'' in 1991, and two Caldecott honors for ''Castle'' and ''Cathedral''), he has been given the rare second chance to make his first masterpiece even better in ''Building the Book 'Cathedral.' ''

This version is not, however, a simple revision. It does not merely retell the original story; Macaulay exercises what he calls ''the liberty of making a number of changes.'' This anniversary volume is actually a book about constructing a book -- like the cathedral itself, from the bottom up. In typical Macaulay fashion, the reprise of ''Cathedral'' became an opportunity to reveal accurately how something else is made and works. The difference between this how-to book and his previous ones is that he lived through the process -- and retained all the raw material needed to give the reader a vivid view.

For example, Macaulay acknowledges that ''Cathedral,'' and by extension his own career, began as something of an accident. For his first book he never intended to document a Gothic cathedral. ''I was just trying to make a picture book about a gargoyle beauty pageant,'' he writes. While the cute though stiff sample gargoyle drawings that he showed to an editor at Houghton Mifflin were greeted with polite amusement, he found that the more intricate cathedral drawing engendered real excitement. So rather than dismissing the original proposal, the editor suggested telling the story of the building. ''I guess I was too pleased by the encouragement to be crushed by the rejection,'' Macaulay writes. ''So the gargoyles went into seclusion and I returned to my drawing board.'' Uncertain how to proceed, he began drawing over the cross section of a Gothic cathedral from one of his old textbooks. ''Each time I traced it, I eliminated a little more of the building, starting from the top and working my way down to the ground,'' he continues. ''When I laid the sketches in reverse order, a cathedral grew.''

Once he had built a foundation for the book, Macaulay realized that his initial pictures were flat and ''lacked a pulse.'' He began refining his concept and developing a workable style. All of which -- including rough sketches, thumbnail layouts, photographic reference material and discarded finished pictures -- are offered as evidence of his trial and error. In addition to a narrative that explains his research at libraries and in real cathedrals (''I blew half the advance and flew to France,'' he admits) -- Macaulay audaciously edits the old version of ''Cathedral'' (crossing out sentences and adding words) before the reader's eyes. His perfectionist rationale for making many of the minor changes -- and some are indeed very subtle -- offer a clear insight into his painstaking procedures and ultimate maturity as a maker of books. ''I've moved the winter scene to the right-hand page and lowered it slightly to strengthen its connection with the view on Page 57,'' he says about one of his revisions. ''Now, when I turn from one page to the next, I get a stronger sense of the building growing.'' But some of the flaws in the original book were concessions to deadline pressures (the hobgoblin of all authors). ''I had a number of sketches of gutters, downspouts and roof details,'' he continues. ''In the end I settled for a simple cross section because it did the job and I was running out of time.''

Fortunately, Macaulay is a perfectionist with clout. Otherwise ''Building the Book 'Cathedral' ''might not have been published, if only because publishers are not in the business of fixing things that aren't broken, and the original ''Cathedral'' could easily stand for another 25 years. Nonetheless, for those of us who can't audit his class at the Rhode Island School of Design, this book is the best primer in storytelling and book design I have read. Whether this is a children's book or an adult's is not important. Everyone who enjoys learning about the mysterious inner workings of anything, and particularly everyone interested in the creative process, will find this semi-confessional and somewhat instructional volume engrossing.

Photo: The people of David Macaulay's Chutreaux enter their finished cathedral, 1338. (from ''Building the Book 'Cathedral' '')

Steven Heller, the art director of the Book Review, is the author of ''Design Literacy (Continued)'' and other books on graphic design.